Mafia 3 is easily one of the strongest games I've played when it comes to voice acting and scene direction, with character expression and emotions perfectly acted and visually displayed in the game's cutscenes. A good story with well fleshed out characters with some great moments and lines, you even get some side supporting characters that aren't seen much but that has such strong dialogue and acting that you get to know them well in their brief appearances. Even a few of the main supporting characters and villains you go after can have sympathetic moments despite being terrible people. Lincoln's back and forth with his associates almost always manages to perfectly convey what kind of relationship they have and nails humorous or emotional moments very well.
The game makes use of it's setting, location and time period, and is full of small world, conversation, and gameplay details that are used to tell a story focused on race relations, returning from war, the changing times of the era which also frequently echoes modern era, and, like the other Mafia games, that the American dream is often more like a nightmare. People complain about the fair housing act and affirmative action on the radio and during conversations the same way they did back then and the same way they do now, you can get shot at or have the police called on you for going into the wrong store or for loitering, characters talk about police abuse of protesters and the Black Panthers, a contact that hates communists and wants you to stop supplies to Cuba just happens to be former secret police for their previous US backed dictator, the police response is slower in poor or primarily black areas, and one of the side quests talks about how the only time guns were being restricted in America was when black people wanted them. Mafia 3 is a game where you hear on the radio about a black kid getting shot and killed for knocking on a white man's door to ask for directions in the 60s and then you see the same thing in the news when you minimize the game and look at social media. You get multiple subtle hints at the main character's PTSD from Vietnam as well as one of the main characters talking about trying to cope with his. They make great use of the soundtrack both during main mission gameplay segments and on the radio and there is some very strong lines and acting in the parts of the story that are filmed as a documentary telling the story of what happened during the game years after the fact.
The only problem I have with Mafia 3's story is the awful cliche of Father James constantly telling Lincoln he will become just like the men he goes after. Well, that's interesting Father as it ignores all facts, logic, the actions of both men, can you elaborate? And no, of course he can't, because characters in his position never can, because it's a hack writing trope frequently used by children's stories and bad anime that somehow gets forced into more interesting material at times. Lincoln literally frees captured black people and immigrants who were going to be sold as slaves to KKK members and this asshole James is crying about Lincoln becoming a monster because he got into the booze and prostitution (which isn't even a bad thing) when he takes over. James has great lines about society, America, coming home from war and trying to make sense of what you saw and did and this weird obsession that he never elaborates on and so much of this part of the story was a bad idea.
You can interpret those moments as him having a warped view of morality and judgement of others from him being a priest (whining about prostitution might make a good case for that), but almost nothing about him really focuses on his faith, and when he does talk about why he became a priest it seem more like his embracing of it was to get away from his violent actions during WWII. A time where he says his rage at the way society has treated his people came out and he felt nothing for the violence he inflicted on others, he could easily be projecting that kind of uncaring use of murder onto Lincoln (which Lincoln clearly isn't really like). Either of those would likely be a fitting and interesting thing to focus on and for a discussion, and it would have been great to see Lincoln finally be a character to call someone else out on their bullshit when it comes to this terrible story trope. Unfortunately, it's left at the usual character whining about you becoming just like the bad guy, and like always, the accused character can never just ask, "How?" Another issue is that some of his lines in the documentary, while great, can either be perfectly fitting or not make much sense at all depending on what you choose for an ending.
Shooting is improved from Mafia 2 and feels more impactful, you can die fairly quickly and be stunned and knocked back when hit, enemies typically react heavily to being shot and don't always die but lie bleeding out on the ground still moving and talking giving it a more real and deadly feel. The ability to activate slow motion while shooting or driving allows for some good gunfights and tight turns and near misses while driving. You can take a more stealth approach with stealth kills and melee attacks, which have a good variety of different animations depending on your angle, speed, use of cover, or weapon.
The gameplay loop of needing to take down each area by talking to two people, going after the two people that control the areas rackets, and then taking down their boss to control the district can get repetitive, but the areas do offer their own type of setting with some different objectives. Going after the main boss of each areas is often a strong point, offering a good set piece where you try to hunt them. These include an old flooded amusement park, a high rise hotel, and a sinking ship in the bayou. It is also helped that every time you take out one of the two lower guys you get a good scene from the documentary style footage filled with interviews talking about Lincoln, the people who helped him, and his war with the Mafia.
Most of the problems with the game seem to be from making a larger open world and trying to do things to copy other games in the genre rather than doing something interesting gameplay or story wise. Mechanically the most interesting thing about this game could have come from your three under-bosses, they all have great lines and scenes but you never really mechanically do anything interesting with any of them and needing to please all of them to keep them alive and keep their upgrades takes choice away from you. The city and areas surrounding it are good but so many of the side missions have you doing generic car stealing, races, driving around to pick things up and for a game that already lacks fast travel they really didn't need multiple versions of these kinds of activities. You can call in someone to bring you a fast car for free that makes getting around easy and someone else to pick up the collection money from your three under-bosses but a lot of things feel more like busywork rather than someone that was added because it was a good, story necessary, or thematic idea.
The worst part of the needless busy work comes from recruiting people to join you instead of killing. In order to do this, you need to wiretap areas of their territory, so you need to find junction boxes and do a lock picking game and then plant a bug on them, each bug requires you to find three pieces of scrap scatter all round the game's map. Bugging also allows you to see item pick ups and enemies in the area if you use a vision mode, which was previously said to be his training and senses from his time in Vietnam and training but the need to wiretapping messes with that narratively and wastes a lot of time if you want to do it, causing you to frequently run out of your way or stop that car to pick up some item to get more wiretaps. They also like to have you drive away from an area to go talk to someone who will tell you where to go in the area you just left, it doesn't take that long but it's just normal time wasting pointlessness you find in almost every open world game.
I recommend anyone who wants to play a game for its storytelling, those interested in seeing good use of world design to aid in the telling of its story and themes, those interested in the themes and time period this game covers, or someone just looking for a good open world third person shooter to try this game. The worst parts of the game can be pretty easily ignored with you only missing a few scenes with supporting characters (and probably some upgrades you don't need or will never use), I'd recommend looking these scenes up online if you do decide to skip the gameplay though because they are well done and give more insight into the characters.
I did have a large amount of stuttering when I started the game that would have made it unplayable, Steam forums said to fix it by changing process priority, shutting off my wireless, and doing a few other things. After none of that worked I fixed the problem by unplugging my Xbox One controller, the game ran perfectly after that with no bugs or glitches of any real consequence.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986992835504189440
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986381977317031936
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/987077323152179201
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986652404010516480
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/987065874535165953
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986992886989254657
The game makes use of it's setting, location and time period, and is full of small world, conversation, and gameplay details that are used to tell a story focused on race relations, returning from war, the changing times of the era which also frequently echoes modern era, and, like the other Mafia games, that the American dream is often more like a nightmare. People complain about the fair housing act and affirmative action on the radio and during conversations the same way they did back then and the same way they do now, you can get shot at or have the police called on you for going into the wrong store or for loitering, characters talk about police abuse of protesters and the Black Panthers, a contact that hates communists and wants you to stop supplies to Cuba just happens to be former secret police for their previous US backed dictator, the police response is slower in poor or primarily black areas, and one of the side quests talks about how the only time guns were being restricted in America was when black people wanted them. Mafia 3 is a game where you hear on the radio about a black kid getting shot and killed for knocking on a white man's door to ask for directions in the 60s and then you see the same thing in the news when you minimize the game and look at social media. You get multiple subtle hints at the main character's PTSD from Vietnam as well as one of the main characters talking about trying to cope with his. They make great use of the soundtrack both during main mission gameplay segments and on the radio and there is some very strong lines and acting in the parts of the story that are filmed as a documentary telling the story of what happened during the game years after the fact.
The only problem I have with Mafia 3's story is the awful cliche of Father James constantly telling Lincoln he will become just like the men he goes after. Well, that's interesting Father as it ignores all facts, logic, the actions of both men, can you elaborate? And no, of course he can't, because characters in his position never can, because it's a hack writing trope frequently used by children's stories and bad anime that somehow gets forced into more interesting material at times. Lincoln literally frees captured black people and immigrants who were going to be sold as slaves to KKK members and this asshole James is crying about Lincoln becoming a monster because he got into the booze and prostitution (which isn't even a bad thing) when he takes over. James has great lines about society, America, coming home from war and trying to make sense of what you saw and did and this weird obsession that he never elaborates on and so much of this part of the story was a bad idea.
You can interpret those moments as him having a warped view of morality and judgement of others from him being a priest (whining about prostitution might make a good case for that), but almost nothing about him really focuses on his faith, and when he does talk about why he became a priest it seem more like his embracing of it was to get away from his violent actions during WWII. A time where he says his rage at the way society has treated his people came out and he felt nothing for the violence he inflicted on others, he could easily be projecting that kind of uncaring use of murder onto Lincoln (which Lincoln clearly isn't really like). Either of those would likely be a fitting and interesting thing to focus on and for a discussion, and it would have been great to see Lincoln finally be a character to call someone else out on their bullshit when it comes to this terrible story trope. Unfortunately, it's left at the usual character whining about you becoming just like the bad guy, and like always, the accused character can never just ask, "How?" Another issue is that some of his lines in the documentary, while great, can either be perfectly fitting or not make much sense at all depending on what you choose for an ending.
Shooting is improved from Mafia 2 and feels more impactful, you can die fairly quickly and be stunned and knocked back when hit, enemies typically react heavily to being shot and don't always die but lie bleeding out on the ground still moving and talking giving it a more real and deadly feel. The ability to activate slow motion while shooting or driving allows for some good gunfights and tight turns and near misses while driving. You can take a more stealth approach with stealth kills and melee attacks, which have a good variety of different animations depending on your angle, speed, use of cover, or weapon.
The gameplay loop of needing to take down each area by talking to two people, going after the two people that control the areas rackets, and then taking down their boss to control the district can get repetitive, but the areas do offer their own type of setting with some different objectives. Going after the main boss of each areas is often a strong point, offering a good set piece where you try to hunt them. These include an old flooded amusement park, a high rise hotel, and a sinking ship in the bayou. It is also helped that every time you take out one of the two lower guys you get a good scene from the documentary style footage filled with interviews talking about Lincoln, the people who helped him, and his war with the Mafia.
Most of the problems with the game seem to be from making a larger open world and trying to do things to copy other games in the genre rather than doing something interesting gameplay or story wise. Mechanically the most interesting thing about this game could have come from your three under-bosses, they all have great lines and scenes but you never really mechanically do anything interesting with any of them and needing to please all of them to keep them alive and keep their upgrades takes choice away from you. The city and areas surrounding it are good but so many of the side missions have you doing generic car stealing, races, driving around to pick things up and for a game that already lacks fast travel they really didn't need multiple versions of these kinds of activities. You can call in someone to bring you a fast car for free that makes getting around easy and someone else to pick up the collection money from your three under-bosses but a lot of things feel more like busywork rather than someone that was added because it was a good, story necessary, or thematic idea.
The worst part of the needless busy work comes from recruiting people to join you instead of killing. In order to do this, you need to wiretap areas of their territory, so you need to find junction boxes and do a lock picking game and then plant a bug on them, each bug requires you to find three pieces of scrap scatter all round the game's map. Bugging also allows you to see item pick ups and enemies in the area if you use a vision mode, which was previously said to be his training and senses from his time in Vietnam and training but the need to wiretapping messes with that narratively and wastes a lot of time if you want to do it, causing you to frequently run out of your way or stop that car to pick up some item to get more wiretaps. They also like to have you drive away from an area to go talk to someone who will tell you where to go in the area you just left, it doesn't take that long but it's just normal time wasting pointlessness you find in almost every open world game.
I recommend anyone who wants to play a game for its storytelling, those interested in seeing good use of world design to aid in the telling of its story and themes, those interested in the themes and time period this game covers, or someone just looking for a good open world third person shooter to try this game. The worst parts of the game can be pretty easily ignored with you only missing a few scenes with supporting characters (and probably some upgrades you don't need or will never use), I'd recommend looking these scenes up online if you do decide to skip the gameplay though because they are well done and give more insight into the characters.
I did have a large amount of stuttering when I started the game that would have made it unplayable, Steam forums said to fix it by changing process priority, shutting off my wireless, and doing a few other things. After none of that worked I fixed the problem by unplugging my Xbox One controller, the game ran perfectly after that with no bugs or glitches of any real consequence.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986992835504189440
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986381977317031936
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/987077323152179201
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986652404010516480
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/987065874535165953
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/986992886989254657